


something just like this

by MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 01:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: Lotor's secretly a cat person.





	something just like this

**Author's Note:**

> My description of Lotor's past is based, roughly, on [this](http://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/166040630195/if-haggar-went-by-the-name-honvera-before-the-war) tumblr post. TL;DR, Lotor was frozen in stasis the same way Allura was, but was much younger when it happened.

His mother had a cat.

Honerva herself he doesn't remember with much detail- she was a brilliant alchemist, of course, but in his memory she's nearly as imposing a figure as his father was. (Here and now, he considers her with far more familiarity, because at least _she_ didn't live to become _that._ )

She had never allowed him to disturb her from her research, but as he'd gotten older he'd at least learned that, if he were quiet, she wouldn't shoo him too far from her labs. Sometimes he'd even been able to secure an unoccupied corner of the room, and, thus out of the way, observe her experiments.

And, without fail, every time he'd found himself lurking near her labs like a ghost... Kova had found him.

It was odd. Kova was aloof and paid no mind to any of his mother's assistants, except to hiss at the ones Honerva was displeased with herself, yet he had always seemed to seek Lotor out, a silent, comforting presence.

He'd discovered that, if he sat _just so_ , Kova would invariably find his way into his lap, and if he scratched his ears and didn't shift around too much, then he would invariably get comfortable and fall asleep on him. The trust in the gesture had never been lost on Lotor.

Observing his mother work, petting the purring Kova in his lap, was one of his fondest memories of his childhood. He'd often dared to think that he and his mother shared the same understanding he and Kova did, one of silent, unobtrusive companionship.

He misses it all dearly.

He catches himself watching Narti and her cat for the third time today, and takes a deep breath as he redirects his attention to the datapad in his hands. He's been thinking about his mother a lot recently.

Narti's cat looks so much like Kova it hurts. He tries not to let it bother him- in the scope of all he's lost, one animal should hardly matter at all, and yet-

Well. It's just Narti here. If he does something ridiculous, she won't hold it against him.

He slides down against the nearest wall, keeping his eyes stubbornly on his datapad, and sits _just so_. The cat turns its head, staring at him from Narti's shoulder. He can feel both of them assessing him. He pretends his face isn't heating up.

Then the cat slips from her shoulder to the ground. He holds his breath and doesn't move.

When Narti's cat climbs into his lap, butting insistently against his hand in a demand to be pet exactly the same way Kova always did, he feels like he might cry.

He sets down the datapad, abandoning any pretense of working in favor of scratching the cat's chin with both hands. Narti seems more amused than anything, and he's content to not address this moment, at all, ever. Then the cat licks his hand, and it's such a small, gentle gesture, and he makes a tiny, pathetic noise in the back of his throat, and then his vision is blurring.

He doesn't look up as Narti walks over to him, footsteps only marginally louder than her cat's are. She sits down against the wall, leaving plenty of space between them. The cat looks up at him and blinks slowly, and he impulsively drops one hand, palm-up, at his side. Narti takes it hesitantly, and he squeezes back.

The trust in the gesture isn't lost on either of them.


End file.
